Nothing like a $10 cable costing $40 because Apple implemented a DRM system to force people to pay Apple an extra $10 for the privilege of using the video-out feature of their iPod/iPhone.

The Apple cables may be $50, but at least they include a USB charger.

Worst. Investment. Ever.

Or at least it is if you actually buy a freaking composite cable for forty bucks.

Ridiculous.

Go there not you can get it for 29.99 when it ships.  I also got my apple usb charger on ebay for $10,

This has the potential to be a great product. If it works, it would be worth $40 to me. I’m use to paying too much for apple products and accessories. However, I’ve had enough experience with trying to view various computer screens on TV monitors to know that I want to see some reviews of this cable before buying it. Does it work with all TVs, regular, wide screen and hi def? Even $30 is too much to pay if the quality of the picture on the TV turns out to be too poor. I’m not expecting hi def, but I want to be sure it won’t hurt my eyes.

@The iMan: I think this product will work identically to the Apple official one - all the heavy lifting is left to the devices, and there are many reviews of quality and compatibility with TV’s. The only thing this doesn’t have is the power adapter, but you should already have one of those, at least they come with iPhones.*

$40 for a very basic, composite video lead is taking the piss as we say in the United States of England. It should at least do s-video.

How come no-one has mentioned how useless the female USB is?  What are you gonna plug into it, a USB->Dock connector to plug into a dock?  I have almost any cable known to modern computers but even I don’t have a Male->Male USB cable, so that’d be another investment to the initial $40.  Why couldn’t they have just ben smart and built-in a male USB cable that you could plug right into an AC adapter?

-Brian

This might be an ok alternative to Apple’s cables at $20 or $25, but any more than that, and I’d rather pay Apple’s $49 and get the USB power adaptor too.  I can almost always use an extra charger for office/travel bag/bedroom, etc.

Also, I’m not sure what’s up with the female USB plug?  Is that a typo?  Only a male USB plug makes sense to me.

Will this cable also work with 5G (and 5.5G) video iPods?  What we should be seeing are cables that work with all the video-capable iPods, as there are so many people out there who aren’t informed about the latest generation’s incompatibility with older devices (Video iPod players and so on).  Let’s get all those old accessories off the shelf and get accessories that work with everything on the market.

But then again, October’s coming, and it wouldn’t be the first time if another new device came around that was incompatible with even the current generation’s capabilities.

It is still annoying that Apple required the chip for matters of finances (wanting a slice of the accessory “pie") rather than putting out a product that somehow made the product better.

Well, I just found out the hard way that the “official” on from Apple is a component cable with 5 connectors: 3 for video and 2 for audio. For those of us without an HD setup, this was pointless. I guess I should have done better research on what the word component meant. Even Radio Shack did not have adapter for this. Very frustrating.

Sending the apple one back and buying the EZGear

Actually, Apple does make both a Component AV Cable and a Composite AV Cable.  They’re sold for the same price:  $50 USD, which is $10 more than the EZGear cable, but does include an AC adapter.

So I guess the real question is whether the AC adapter is worth the extra $10.  In my own opinion, if you’re using the cables regularly to watch movies from your iPod, an AC adapter is almost a requirement, and only the iPhone already comes with one.

Another consideration is that the EZgear cables look like they might be a bit more durable than Apple’s own AV cables.  The Apple AV cables use extremely thin wires compared to most other video/audio cables I’ve ever used… They’re barely any thicker than the wires on the Apple stock earbuds.

The cable has been tested and will work with 5G iPods. 

As far as component video goes, since the video stored on the iPod is lower resolution than composite, the value of a component cable is minimal.  All HDTVs have a composite input, so this cable should work on your HDTV.

For the record, my earlier comment was directed at the poster who (mistakenly) bought a component cable from Apple and didn’t realize that they also make a composite cable.

Just to be clear, however, component is not about resolution, it’s about the overall quality of the signal from the device to the TV.

The iPod classic and iPod nano can produce 480p (progressive) output, but only over component, for instance. You’ll also generally get better colour-balance from component inputs. 

That having been said, this isn’t going to be noticeable on anything but the most high-end TVs, and doesn’t make such a large difference that I would consider it to be worth worrying about.  It’s noticeable on some of the better content, but only by direct comparison.

If you really care that much about video output quality on a higher-end TV, you’re probably not using an iPod to play back your videos anyway.